fate
by pyrat-xo
Summary: Be kind, be honest, be fair and just.


She is short, grumpy-looking, and very quiet.

You are short,_ also _very quiet, and adults say you have shifty eyes. To be fair, you're only five years old and children should be seen and not heard and the twelfth prince of Xing must always be composed and must always be an exemplary child so as not to bring shame upon his family in the presence of the emperor. Or, for that matter, anyone.

Your eldest half-brother, Liu, is twelve, but his position makes him cocky and spoiled and prone to tantrums and even though no one says it, he's not fit to even be a prince.

No emperor should have such a shameful temperament, after all.

Your hand reaches out almost of its own accord to grasp your mother's sleeve and the girl straightens up. She's covered from neck to toe in black, and old man Fuu pries her hand from his pant leg and nudges her out from behind him while mother pulls her arm away and your hand drops back to your side.

Lan Fan's mother has passed away, Fuu says. My son is in the service of your husband and emperor, and has no time for a child. She will train with the young master starting today.

Mother nods and smiles sadly and tells you to go with them. You follow old man Fuu to the courtyard and he hands you a big rubber ball that comes up halfway to your knees and tells you that you're quite free to play with it. You would rather be playing with your half-brothers, and Lan Fan doesn't seem like an awful lot of fun, but you kick it to her anyway.

She kicks it back hard, and it bops you on the nose. You're about to tell Fuu that it's quite alright and it didn't hurt so please don't scold his new friend, but Fuu only smirks a little and tells Lan Fan to do it again until the young master learns to block.

Lan Fan's expression is horrified, but she follows her grandfather's orders and you not only block this next one, but smack the ball back to hit Lan Fan in the stomach.

* * *

Soft rubber balls quickly become hard rubber balls and those soon become wooden knives and swords and all a manner of different imitation weapons and then real weapons. You don't think it's all that odd, that by the time you turned six you could snatch a knife out of the air behind your head. You can do handstands and backflips (though you don't do them often) and make some of your older brothers cry like babies, even though you get scolded for it.

Father teasingly comments that he didn't expect one of his sons to grow up to be one of his strongest warriors and you bow and feel honored; but you're thinking, That's not right, I'm gonna be emperor.

Once, late in the night, an intruder from another clan snuck into your room with a knife. You bit him on the wrist, grabbed his knife and distracted him until Fuu burst into your room and took his head off. Quite by accident, because no one had a chance to question him and find out which clan he'd come from. You didn't cry afterwards, nor were you especially excited; knives had been coming at your face for well over a year, after all. Mother was hysterical, but you told her not to worry, 'cause you're safe and that guy wasn't so strong, anyway.

Father was _furious_. For all that it was _scary as hell _to see the emperor angry, you immediately became his favorite. Word got out that you not only distracted a potential assassin, you calmed your mother down afterwards and very politely requested that Fuu begin an investigation. You became _untouchable_- especially to your older brothers, who probably had to put up with their mothers telling them that the twelfth prince fought off an attacker when he was only _seven years old_, what have _you_ done?

You see the trainwreck coming before it hit- the other princes hate your guts now, but the princesses like you more than ever. At least, the ones from large clans that you're allowed to play with. The emperor's eldest child is his first daughter; she's fourteen, and she thinks you're the sweetest out of all the princes. She's beautiful and kind, but tough, and the emperor dotes on her. If there's one royal brat who holds sway over all the others, it's her.

Your younger brothers, even though they're only younger by a few months at most, see a hero when they look at you. You defend them from your older brothers and teach them games and let them play with your toys- you form an alliance of numbers and big sisters and though the caretakers see childrens' games, the emperor's closest adviser sees politics.

* * *

Your seventh birthday present from Fuu is a blade that comes up to your shoulders. He tells you that by the time you become a teenager, it'll be the perfect length so you had better start practicing. Lan Fan is still quiet, but bolder, and when her birthday rolls around four months later, Fuu gifts her with a set of kunai and starts teaching her how to use them.

Your education diverges here. You split your time between your education- maths, language, literature, science and politics and government- and your training. You hardly ever see Lan Fan anymore, and you're both ten years old by the time your training lessons coincide again.

Lan Fan has acquired a mask and learned to scale walls with her bare hands. You're tall enough to wield your blade with a decent amount of competence, though it's still a bit too long. Fuu says to Lan Fan, From here on out, you are not to let the young master out of your sight.

You begin meditating together. You learn the flow of chi, to note the differences in each person and to pick Lan Fan and Fuu out of a crowd.

The number of attempts at kidnapping and would-be assassins continues to increase; Lan Fan and Fuu thwart them a few times, but most of the time they leave it up to you. Training for the young master, Fuu says.

* * *

Liu is seventeen when you turn ten; no longer a bully but a young man, striving to be a prince. He learns the lessons you've had drilled into you since the day you were born: be kind, be honest, be fair and just. Treat others with respect but not submission; those below you must respect, fear and trust you. He learns these lessons well, but he remains a hot-tempered and reckless youth. You feel like a bit of a hypocrite thinking this when puberty is still over and beyond the horizon, but you know an emperor when you see one and he isn't it. Liu is sent to train with Xing's greatest general, and you would feel jealous if not for Fuu and Lan Fan.

His best friends are the second and third princes- An and Tzo. An is a quiet, cunning boy who used to make your life a living hell in Liu's shadow. He's too intelligent to be an outright bully, but you're too clever to think that Liu targeted you just because he _felt like it_. An grew out of bullying the same time Liu did, and began studying to be a scholar. He knows as well as you do that Liu will never be emperor, and he has no interest in taking the position himself. You rarely speak to him, but when you realize that he's banking on you to be the next emperor, you call an unspoken truce and swear to yourself that you would make him your closest advisor.

Of the three, you like Tzo best. He's friendly and open, level-headed and reasonable and, you think, most fit to be emperor out of the three eldest. But he's not ambitious, has no hint of steel that's present in Liu and An and even in most of the princesses. He would be a benevolent, wise, kind emperor who will keep Xing from falling, but not a great emperor who will expand Xing and allow it to prosper.

You know that Xing deserves nothing less.

When you asked Tzo what he'd do if you became emperor, he answered with a wink that he would like to shave his head and become a monk. You're not sure if he's joking, but you look into a few monasteries for him- just in case.

* * *

The day after you turn twelve is the first day you decide to skip training without permission (or deadly illness) to sneak off into the city and enjoy yourself. You shrug out of your imperial yellow and dress in the deep blue color of upstanding Xingese men. Though the material of your clothing is far more extravagant than those of the commoners, few take notice beyond its color and you spend the day in fear of what would happen if you happen to run into one of the servants, or if Fuu finds you.

When you show up to the courtyard the day after, Fuu makes Lan Fan stand in front of you while he pulls off his plated glove and slaps her. Hard.

You stand agape while Lan Fan bites back tears, but Fuu gives her one of his looks and her expression hardens and you can almost hear her think, _It should be an honor to take punishment for the young master._

You never skip training again.

You overhear Fuu apologize to Lan Fan later- _We are not to beat the young master (and given his personality, I'm not sure that would be effective) but he is a just and compassionate boy who will not allow others to shoulder his blame; punishing others is the only way to truly punish him. I'm sorry_- and even though you're still a little pissed off at him, what Fuu says sticks and you swear to never let them down again. After all, an emperor must not only never disappoint his few closest retainers, he must fulfill the expectations of every single one of his people.

* * *

You grow into your blade at fourteen. It's not a sudden, terrific change, but you picked it up one day and hardly broke a sweat while you warmed up. You realized then that you had long since outgrown the need to compensate for the weight of each swing and the length of the sword no longer threw you off. You carried it everywhere bound and strapped to your back, like a sharp, deadly badge of honor.

Few other princes have your skills, though all of them have bodyguards. Lan Fan's father (a strong, loyal, willful man known to his peers only as Lei) died a week before her birthday, protecting the emperor from a would-be assassin. Father's arm had been grievously wounded by a poisoned thrown blade, but he had lived and called the most skilled alkahestry specialists in the country to the capital in order to heal him.

You attended Lei's funeral on Lan Fan's birthday. She cried, but you only noticed because you had been standing close enough to see through the eyeholes of her mask.

* * *

Father's health begins to decline and the servants and leaders of the many different clans are in a tizzy over the line of succession. Father calls his cleverest sons to his room and tells you all that the search for immortality has been, so far, fruitless. Liu is conspicuously absent, having lost interest in politics and immersed himself in the strategies of war, but An and Tzo look to you and thus, so do the rest of your brothers.

Amestris, you say. The capital of alchemy is Amestris. If the philosopher's stone is anywhere, it's there.

Your brothers nod slowly, and the youngest (only twelve) volunteers to go. Father gives him a hard look, and you interrupt to say that you'll go instead, for the honor of your clan and for the sake of your emperor. He dismisses the group and An pulls you aside to brief you on Amestris's customs, their dialects, their government and trades. He tells you there are maps in the library and to go through Xerxes, if you want to learn about alchemy.

Tzo gives you a sturdy leather bag. To keep your things where they belong, he said, and you knew he meant your wits as much as your belongings, though he can do nothing about your wits.

* * *

You arrive in Amestris expecting scorn and ridicule. You find a brash young alchemist and his wonder of a brother and experience nothing but kindness from many. Amestrians are interesting; full of humor and cheerfulness, but their country is a military one, and so her people are prone to outbursts of violence. You think Lan Fan will fit in just fine here.

The first time Lan Fan truly frightens you is when she turns her blade on herself. You had thought, for one terrifying second, that she would kill herself so as not to be a burden to you. An emperor must never think of his people as a burden, and you wondered if you had failed- but Lan Fan is stronger than she looks, and so she leaves to replace her arm. It's strange to only feel Fuu following behind you, but reassuring that he isn't worried about her.

Though you don't care much for her military endeavors, you find that the Amestrian army is filled to the brim with strength and resourcefulness. You're privately pulling for Mustang, but the affairs of Amestris's government are not your concern. You send Fuu to guide Maria Ross to Xing with a letter penned in ink and stamped with the seal of the Yao clan. Your family will take good care of Lieutenant Ross, and mother would find her interesting.

For a while, you're alone.

* * *

Your first thought when you see the abomination that is Gluttony, is that there is a stone inside that monster, and you will bring it home.

You feel the same hope arise with Envy, and even though there's an enormous foot crushing the air out of your lungs and a terrifically scary man with an extra eye on his forehead bearing down on you and you hurt all over- you see immortality shining in your grasp and know that your entire life has built up to this.

It's fatalistic and unrealistic and unscientific and you never really believed in that sort of thing, but when the philosopher's stone seeps into the wound on your cheek, the only word that comes to mind for situations like this is _destiny._


End file.
